What did John Farnam tell us?

Big shootout in Indianapolis! Bar fight turns into shooting! Two dead, three wounded, and two of the wounded are critical. Also, the bar's security guard was among the wounded.

This is what the TV was blaring at me as I woke up this morning, and so I hit the intertubes to see the details.

Oh. I knew something was up when the newsreader referenced the nearest big intersection as 16th and Sherman, and the online story corroborated that as having the incident occurring in the 1300 block of Sherman Ave.

This isn't technically The Swamp, but it's Swamp-adjacent. "The Swamp" being the near-Eastside neighborhood traditionally largely populated by the unemployed descendants of the unemployed denizens of Appalachia who flocked to the factories of the North and Midwest during WWII and the postwar boom years.

The near-Northside, once known as "War Zone D", is pretty gentrified these days. There's a wine bar at 16th & New Jersey, where there used to be trash fires and bum fights thirty years ago. But venture too far east or west on 16th from the enclave between Meridian and College, and you're back in the hard 'hood again.

If you were to ask me "Hey, Tam, I'm in Indianapolis for a week and I'd like to get into a gunfight. Where should I go?" well, 42nd & Post would be at the top of my list, but the parking lot of a bar at 13th & Sherman at 0200 on a Sunday would be pretty close behind it.
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Leaving Las Vegas

So, along about Wednesday, I got to wondering how I'd miscalculated my packing so badly. I always pack enough socks and underthings for fresh ones every day, and enough shirts to have a clean one every day, plus an extra shirt in case I spill something on myself.

But by Wednesday it was pretty clear that I was going to be one day short on socks and underwear...until I checked my itinerary and noticed I was leaving at 12:05 AM on Saturday, not 12:05 PM.

Anyway, I didn't get any sleep last night other than a couple thirty minute catnaps on the plane, and I'm flat wore out. I'll write stuff for y'all tomorrow, when I'm coherent.
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Prose and cons...

So, I did a quick straight up report on Mossberg's 590M.

More thoughts later.
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That went well.

Another day at SHOT, another RECOIL story (or two).
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I don't want to grow up...

Let's see if I can hold off doing so for another year.
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More writings...

• You can't swing a Galco Miami Classic without hitting a 10mm Auto pistol at SHOT this year.


• If you're gonna snowflake, snowflake all the way. (And yes I would.)

Happy JMB Day!

Today is the day we celebrate the birthday of the guy who invented the basic operating systems of half the stuff out there on the SHOT Show floor.
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Another thing I wrote...

...can be found here.

Share and enjoy!
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Day One

I wrote a thing last night instead of partying. Actually, a few things, but that's the only one up so far.

Now to get my game face on. I don't want to mess this up.
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So, this is a thing that happened...

Waking up and finding a still-in-the-wrapper Pmag in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing the night before, with no recollection of how it got there, is the most #SHOTShow thing that has ever happened to me.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 23, 2018

Long day...

Ow, my legs.

I am told by my phone that I've covered over four miles today, not counting all the standing around.
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I wrote a thing.

It can be read at RECOIL's site.

I had fun writing it.
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Verklempt

I got a notification from my friends at Indy Arms Co. that a package had arrived for me. A reader had sent me a birthday gift, and would I like to come and pick it up or should they hold it 'til after SHOT?

I allowed as how I had some shopping to get done at the local Meijer store just across the street, and I'd swing by on the way and get it.

I found myself standing in the middle of the gun store with eyes full of tears...

Thank you very much!

I took a minute to get my $#!+ in a sock before heading over to Meijer's for groceries and sundries. While there I swung by the magazine rack to see if the new RECOIL was in. It was.

The first issue of RECOIL with my byline in it. I do wish Pat were here to see it, even though I know what his reaction would be...

Important tip...

I frequently get asked via email or FB Messenger or whatever to offer CCW concealment advice to a male reader's Significant Other.

I'm 5'12" tall, I work from home, and I dress like a hobo. I'm currently wearing jeans a size too big, a nylon web instructor-type belt, and an untucked and unbuttoned overshirt that I like not only for its gun burka properties but also because it has cavernous "document pockets" that will swallow small notebooks and an Olympus Pen E-PL1 and the other things I use in my day-to-day work.

Is this how your Significant Other dresses every day? If not, I probably don't have a lot of specific concealment advice for her, just a lot of vague stuff and hints I've gleaned from other friends.
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Relic of the Past

So, Indiana is the state where you can buy a bottle of Jack Daniels in the CVS with less hassle than a packet of Sudafed, since you need to take a card to the pharmacist who stores the Sudafed behind the counter with the opioids and weapons-grade plutonium but the whiskey is just out there with the soda pop and bottled water.

Indiana is also...still...the only state where you can't buy cold beer anyplace but a liquor store, for some vague and no doubt John Dillinger-related reason.

This leads to the weird sight of grocery stores that have coolers for white wines and champers, but the beer is just sitting out warm.

A bill was advanced to allow cold beer sales in convenience and grocery stores this legislative session, but it died in committee, thanks to stiff opposition from the liquor store owners lobby.

"Alcohol and gas do not mix. So let's go ahead and use Hoosier common sense and be different from the other 49 states," said Knightstown resident Sarah Ward, who is president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union of Indiana.

Wait, the WCTU is still a thing? Apparently it is here in Indiana.

At least it looks like we'll get Sunday sales this year. (When I moved here it was only for sale by the drink on Sundays, and recently they added an exception for on-premises sales by breweries, wineries, and distilleries.)

...aaand that's a wrap.

The various testing protocols for magazine reviews leave me with a lot of partial boxes of ammo, and so I grabbed a box of Winchester 124gr NATO FMJ, Federal HST 147gr +P, and TulAmmo 115gr FMJ left over from...I think the XD-E review? Anyway, each box had only 15 rounds left in it.

I needed 91 rounds to finish the test, so those three and a full box of TulAmmo would do the trick.

The COM shots are from seven yards, with the full box of TulAmmo. That was just hosing nearly as fast as I could go, reinforcing not pinning the trigger.

I brought the target in to five yards and fired the fifteen HSTs at the upper A zone, at about the pace you'd use for shooting at the 3x5 in a FAST. Still at fifteen, I fired the fifteen Winchester NATO at the yellow triangle.

Finally, I pulled the target in to four and put the remaining eleven rounds of TulAmmo into the red star because duh.

There were no malfunctions of any type to report.

So this wraps up the CZ-75B Omega 2k round test. The gun was field-stripped and lubed with Lucas Extreme Duty Gun Oil on November the 6th, and has since fired 2,000 rounds, most of it filthy, steel-cased TulAmmo, with no further cleaning or lubrication. The gun has not once failed to go through the complete cycle of operation. The front sight's tritium vial leaked all its radioactive glow-y stuff, but there have otherwise been no parts breakages.

Stay tuned for field-stripping photos and general thoughts on two months of life with the Cee Zed.
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Long session...

In order to hasten the wrapup of the CZ-75B Omega test yesterday, I brought two hundred rounds of ammo with me to Indy Arms Co.: A hundred of the Aguila 115gr FMJ and a hundred TulAmmo 115gr FMJ.

Still using the distal joint but concentrating on getting off the trigger as soon as it breaks so I can be prepping for the next shot. This stuff was all shot at what was nearing "wheels coming off" speed for me. I am okay with this relative to the previous session, considering I was going a lot faster, but got better results.

There were no malfunctions of any type to report.

This makes 1909 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubed with no malfunctions of any type. 91 rounds to go.
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I'm not as big a loser as I planned to be.

According to the scale and my little weight loss app on my phone, I'm down 17.8 pounds since I started using the app in late September. While this is the equivalent of no longer having to carry Huck the cat with me everywhere I go, I still didn't quite hit my target.

Unless I lose six pounds between now and Sunday, which seems unlikely without using a Stryker saw, my SHOT Show weight goal will not be met.

No matter. Onward.
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What's In A Name?

So, KEH is having a one-day flash sale on Hasselblad and Leica stuff. Even though I have no business even thinking about stuff like this with SHOT Show expenses looming in the near distance, I click the link in the email. I figure there's no harm in a little window shopping.

My eye is caught by a little Leica 14-50mm F/2.8-3.5 D-Vario Elmarit Micro* Four Thirds lens. It's not really a Leica, of course. It's Panasonic glass that Leica had some design input on and then licensed the sacred name to grace the lens. It would be like if Wilson offered a few design ideas and styling cues to Ruger and then Ruger sold a "Wilson edition" SR1911 that contained no Wilson parts nor had ever actually been to Berryville.

Yet I couldn't help but picture that lens hanging off the front of my svelte rangefinder-looking Pen E-P5 as I bicycle around Broad Ripple or Mass Ave this spring.

This is silly. I already have a vastly superior Olympus 12-40mm F/2.8 M.Zuiko Pro lens. If price tag were the chosen yardstick, the Olympus Pro is twice the lens the "Leica" Panasonic is. It's faster and covers pretty much the same focal length range. I can think of literally no situation where I'd use the "Leica" in preference to the M.Zuiko.

But it did briefly catch my eye.

Such is the power of brand image.

*As a reader was kind enough to point out, this is a regular Four Thirds lens, not Micro Four Thirds, which means I would have needed to use my 4/3-to-MFT adapter to run it on my camera. Most of my point still stands, though. Also, I shouldn't surf sales fliers before coffee.
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Fudd

Presented w/o Context: "I'm so Fudd that the only gauge I own looks like a #Magpul catalog had sex with a #Surefire catalog and they had a baby and the baby threw up on my shotgun."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 17, 2018